ShogunT

Brilliant strat. Vocabulary.com is a great tool to upgrade one's vocab arsenal. At my time, I made flash cards which was not as sufficient as using a phone app.

My main sources of GRE grinding were: Magoosh GRE, $100 for 6 months. 5 lb. Book of GRE Practice Problems, $12 on Amazon. Good luck.

If it is a double-blind peer review, which is very likely so, I personally think you have two choices: First, address the reviewers as anonymous. Second, report to the editor, which may end up getting that reviewer removed from his/her position, and you will be likely to be asked to address the reviewer as anonymous.

If you don't have the school writing service, then you may want to try Grammarly for yourself. Then get some profs (you do have some connection in the department, don't you?) to have a look at it.

Wait... did you talk to the grad students in his lab on how to approach him? Every Prof has a unique working style and is extremely busy.

It is true that there are cases in my class, some students avoid group works to focus on the exam of the same class and eventually earn higher grade than other members in their groups. Tough situation. You may want to talk to the student in question in a soft yet firm tone that there is nothing can be done to increase his/her grade since everything is finalized. His/Her group project was good but not of the expected quality that earns an A. Also further investigation into the discordant collaboration among the student's group project members cannot be taken into consideration for his/her grade increase.

If you are offered TAship as a Master student. In addition: my friend was a Master-with-thesis working under a professor. That prof had some labs whose assistant position were vacant and my friend fortunately became the TA of that lab. No guarantee.

If you are aiming for the top grade, then I don't think you need to worry about the curve. The senior grad students would be helpful. They would have experienced some pitfalls within their study or known some strategy to avoid ones, so ask them about the courses you are planning to take. However, many will not be likely to respond to unsolicited email. I myself don't answer emails asking coursework details from student X who has never set foot on my school premises, but if he/she is a current student, I will answer. Many grad students are also very willing to share their experience to you when you ask them personally.

George Mason U is ahead of U of Houston in the CS general ranking [1]. You haven't define what you mean by 'good academic position' so I assume a top-50 school in CS. Generally both schools at your choice are lesser ranked, so it can be really hard for you to apply for a tenure-track position at one of the top CS schools. Furthermore, no matter where you choose to do your PhD, it is already challenging to have a 'good' academic position given the current market. With that said, aiming for a good academic position you are putting yourself in a very difficult situation at the very start. I just want to give you heads up. However, many people have started in lesser ranked schools, thrived with plethora of publication, went to do post-doc at top schools for 1-3 years, and got tenure-track positions in high ranked schools. There are two things you should consider when picking up your school. Take them with a grain of salt. 1) Funding: Which program has stable funding for you to do RA? - 10 points Which program has stable funding for you to do TA? - 8 points 2) Research: Professor at which school is a better match? - 10 points Who produces more publication in your field of interest in the past 5-7 years? - 9 points If you talked to them already, whom do you feel more comfortable speaking with? - 8 points Who graduated more PhDs that coming to good research labs or top CS schools in the past 10 years? - 7 points Who has better reputation or is a journal/conference committee of some relevant publication venues? - 6 points Evaluate your options with this kind of assessment. Hope it helps somehow. 1] http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings?int=abc409

They can keep the research-oriented email account. I will take the gym membership. Also seems to me that this is an affiliation status. The post-doc is supposed to be paid by the other (main) source of funding already.

Well, you want so many things. I also have a feeling that you do not seem to appreciate the TA job that is actually keeping you afloat in grad school. I think I will stop giving advice here and wish you all the best of luck in your academic endeavors.

I am a TA now, and I feel really sorry to know you have to teach that much. On a positive note, even not much, you are still in control of your situation, i.e. you can work to earn the funding that supports your own study. A friend of mine was an RA for a PI whose funding got terminated. Unfortunately, my friend could not find a TA job within her department and had to leave the PhD program with a Master degree.

Completely agree with this. I took few years off school to work in industry. When I came back to grad school for my PhD study, I treat it like my former job more than a school study.

@fernandes: absolutely! But you should check with Rice for eligibility. Most of the endowed fellowships/scholarships required students to have good academic GPA (not eligible for incoming students as you have not enrolled in any coursework there). I talked with a prof. in Rice ECE last year. He said Rice is a very small but research-focused school, and faculty members have lots of money at their disposal. So admitted students are usually 'well'-funded. I hope you receive one kind of such good funding that allows you to focus on your research without worrying much about the financial stuffs. Best wishes.

Rule of thumb: if your prof has good funding for RA and wants you to be RA, be RA. Never ever do TA for the first semester if you are not required to do so. You need to deal with mostly adjusting your academic environment in your new school and catching up with the research in your PI's lab (if you have one), taking classes and preparing for qualifying exam at the end of your first academic year (many engineering programs require so).

I have 2 publication (one good, one mediore). Some industry experience in the U.S. Good GRE. Interviewed with 2 Profs in the ECE Dept. in Jan. Offered in Mar. I'm international.

I only classify the funding into eligible and non-eligible for internationals. As international student you will not be eligible for NSF Fellowship unfortunately. But there are still lots of money out there to grab. Go asking your financial/graduate office. There are lots of small endowed fellowships ($2.5k~$3k a year) for internationals in my public school. I applied and got some that provided a little relief to my study. They are all competitive, and some require the Dept.'s nomination. In additin, if you publish a paper to a conference, choose one with travel grant support for grad students, so you can have part of your travel covered.

You can consider asking a co-author in you paper to give the presentation on your behalf. Or ask the new school to defer your admission to Spring, which may complicate your graduate funding status.

I would disagree here. The more prestige the program is, the higher standards it holds. I am sure that schools expect qualified students to pass, not most of the students if they are not qualified. And there is little correlation that the instructors/profs are bound to do any leverage to curve the grade mean. For my school, grading method solely depends on the instructors, and many of the prof I knew are quite fair about it. But there are also Profs with really eccentric grading methods and teaching styles. What I would suggest to the original poster are four things. First, choose the course you take wisely. I myself sit in many classes during the beginning of the semester, and then pick the ones I am comfortable with. Sometimes, the course description and its expected outcomes are quite appealing, but the actual teaching does not provide the opportunity to reach these goals. Second, be proactive and ask questions to your senior grad students in the dept. Third grind as hard as you can. Fourth, grad school is hard but doable. Many people have done that before.

Often happen in big bio lab, my spouse included. For hours, people working on different projects sit in a same room and start to talk about stuffs that are of little related to others. I don't know the dynamics in your lab. But if it's good, and you are senior member of the lab, I would suggest you to try to talk with other members and see if you all can come up with some method to shorten the lab meeting. Then talk with your PI about it. Otherwise, there are things you have to take in stride sometimes.

I agree with you TakeruK that the requirements are varied from school to school. My school is on a 3-semester basis (Fall/Spring/Summer) and requires full-time 9 hours in regular seasons and 6 hours in summer, only if you have summer employment (my case TA), for international students.

Welcome to gradcafe. Grad school experience for me so far is good. I have been doing the research that I like, and I am on my way to get what I want academically. Grad school may be cool for you, too. However, there is some caveats for you. First, you don't need to be worried about high schoolers eating you alive. But you really need to think of whether grad school would eat you alive, i.e. whether or not you would survive through grad study. Pay a visit to your discipline-specific forum as Sigaba said is a good start to grasp the necessary information for your decision. Second, going to grad school is a big decision to make, and you are absolutely right to feel overwhelmed. I am not in your field, so I would only suggest to list out all the prerequisite skills that you need to advance in your career and whether or not grad school would help you obtain them. In addition, also think about the worst-case scenarios. For instances, you may either fail the James Madison Fellowship, get kicked out of grad school, or later decide that grad school is not for you, or just receive no grad admission offer. What course of action would you do in such a case? You have to be prepared intellectually and mentally before you decide to go to grad school. Don't go to grad school because your friend, family members think it is cool. p/s: I don't know if anyone still prefer this outdated book, but I would recommend you to have a look at: "Getting What You Came For," by Robert L. Peters. All the best!

As F-1 student you may need to take 6-hour coursework in summer if you are an international. In addition, the stipend would vary from place to place. I guess your appointed TAship in the regular season pays you differently compared to RA offered by prof. I would suggest to prorate as TakeruK said, and try to get in touch with other RA in your dept. about the living and tuition expense in regular seasons/summer at your school. In addition, even each Prof may pay RA differently, there is still a department-wise guideline for RA stipend. So ask the dept. graduate advisor for this information.

There are so many practical advice people here have pointed out for you. I just want to give additional comment. With all due respect, I think you made a wrong assumption. PIs in big lab are extremely busy to keep the lab functioning. They hire assistants and post-doc to cover part of their jobs including mentoring (PhD) students, so that they can go networking and bring the money to the lab. Therefore, you should not suppose that your PI will remember what you have said and have to be very proactively in reminding him/her about what you want. My recommendation is to directly inform the PI several weeks in advance followed up right away by an email as a meeting memo. Then keep following up every 4 or 5 days. Also as other people pointed out, communicate with your PI for how long in advance he/she wants to receive the notification. (but don't assume the PI will remember what he/she tell you) However, I also want to ask you how many times this has happened to you? If you have tried to improve the situation but your PI is still not responsive, then it would be a bit of a problem. But again, the priority of PI given to the lab is as follows: grant/networking/promotion/top journals/budget > post-doc > ..... > lab manager > .... > PhD students > ... > MS student (you). So, take it in stride then. In addition, working with post-doc has pros and cons. I saw you are in MS biology, so this may not be a big deal for you. One of the cons is post-doc may leave before you finish your dissertation, and you don't want to risk changing the topic at your 4th or 5th year in the program supposed that you decide to pursue a PhD in Biology. Best of luck!

I think the answer is usually no. But it is a matter of opportunity and trade-off. If after very extremely serious consideration, you still think your own budget allows the expense, then go for it because good field research may greatly benefit your next grant proposal. Another circumstance that applied is that you have failed multiple time with your grant writings and are in dire need of improving yourself. Otherwise, do not. A friend of mine works in public health and his grant proposals have been rejected many times, but I haven't seen him doing field work by his own pocket.